Leslie Silko - Gardens in the Dunes

Just south of the Chemehuevi reservation, they stopped for the night at a small trading post called Road’s End, where the storekeeper’s wife accommodated overnight guests in a small back room. At first the wife was reluctant to allow the monkey and parrot cages indoors, but Hattie gave her an extra half-dollar and promised to keep them caged, a promise Indigo did not keep. There was scarcely room for the cages and luggage around the small bed they shared. All night Hattie tossed and turned, and each time she felt another horsehair poke through the bedding from the mattress. In the morning, Indigo kept scratching at her legs and when they looked they saw little red welts of insect bites.

The following morning, the table in the kitchen was set with only two places; their driver seated himself at one but when Hattie asked, the wife told her the Indian girl could sit in a chair out on the front porch. Hattie said nothing, but removed her plate and cup from the table and joined Indigo, who was already out on the porch playing with the parrot and monkey, the four pots of orchids out of the hatbox in the sun.

All morning Hattie felt out of sorts from the wife’s rude behavior, and exhausted from lack of sleep. The reflected glare of the sun off the metal of the horse’s bit temporarily blinded her but when she closed her eyes, the burning white flash remained and quickly developed into a headache. She managed to sip a little paregoric from the bottle in her purse and then leaned back and closed her eyes to try to sleep. Instead her thoughts swarmed around and around — her mother’s disapproval, her father’s disappointment, her foolishness in believing Edward truly cared about her. She tried to control her thoughts by visualizing the lovely carved gemstones from the spring at Bath, the bright orange carnelian carving of Minerva seated with her serpent at her side, a pale yellow carnelian of a long-neck waterbird standing on its nest with its chick, and the cloudy chalcedony of the three cattle under the oak tree.

Edward was reluctant to part with any of them, but felt obliged after she agreed to make the loan. He sorted through the gem carving and gave her the three he didn’t want. Perfect, she thought; I don’t want anything he wants!

Indigo called out and Hattie roused herself to see what it was; up ahead on the river was a large earthwork — the dam to feed water to Los Angeles. Indigo was amazed at the changes all around; the river was trapped, and only a narrow stream, muddy red, flowed south. The river was stripped naked; all its willows and tamarisks were gone, its red clay banks scraped; and exposed piles of white skeletons of cottonwood trees dotted the swaths of scraped red earth. The deep gouges made to build the dam had trapped rainwater and now were filled with weeds and sunflowers. Rows of army tents lined the ridge above the river, and nearby were clusters of wagons, their canvas covers painted with prices for lamp oil and tobacco.

As they continued south, Indigo noticed the cottonwoods and willows were dying of thirst because the flow of the river was so meager. Parker wasn’t actually a town; it was more like a stagecoach station at the edge of the reservation. A barbed-wire fence marked the entrance to the reservation. As they arrived, the children ran out to meet the buggy and they pointed at her and at the monkey and parrot and they shouted and laughed.

As they neared the superintendent’s office, someone — probably the older boys — threw rocks at the buggy until the driver turned on the seat and swore at them, with no apology to Hattie. Dirty animals, he called them. He was the son of the livery stable owner who kept a toothpick in the corner of his mouth, and he made it clear he thought Hattie a fool or worse. The driver let them off outside the office of the reservation superintendent and drove away without a word, in the direction of the trading post.

Indigo waited outside the superintendent’s office with the parrot on one shoulder and the monkey on her hip. She was careful to stand close to the wall around a corner where no one passing by the office could see her because she was afraid the children might hit Linnaeus or Rainbow with a rock.

Hattie was heartened by the reservation superintendent, who was new to the job but nonetheless located a file of correspondence written on behalf of Indigo’s older sister, named Salt. Hattie noticed on the file Indigo’s surname was listed as Sand. The last known address for the sister was in care of the construction site at the Parker Canyon dam. However, there were no records of their mother, but the superintendent admitted there were many more Indians along the Colorado River than were listed on the Indian Affairs census. The Indians moved a good deal. Apparently some of the tribes did not get along with one another and others complained the river bottom land wasn’t healthy.

The superintendent shook his head. He had just transferred here from Oklahoma two months ago. The Indian Bureau lacked the resources to hire more officers to keep them on the reservations and to track down those who drifted back into the canyons and hills. He hastened to add they posed no threat to white people.

He picked up the file on Indigo for a moment before he glanced up to ask if she intended to adopt the child. Hattie was so surprised at his question she felt her cheeks flush, and for a moment she lost her composure.

There was no reason to adopt the child if she had an elder sister nearby, was there? The superintendent shook his head and moved another file on top of Indigo’s file. The child’s elder sister had been jailed for theft by the previous agency superintendent. She might still be there if her fines had not been paid by a contractor hiring workers for the site of the dam construction. The superintendent’s face colored a bit as he added young squaws the sister’s age often resorted to prostitution.

Hattie gathered her purse in her lap and thanked him for all his help. He reminded her the child was under his jurisdiction; if she was not returned to the boarding school in Riverside, she must be turned over to him, under penalty of federal law. Hattie assured him that she understood the conditions and promised to stay in touch.

The driver had bloodshot eyes when he finally returned for them; Hattie was furious because he kept them waiting on the porch of the superintendent’s office for more than an hour, but the odor of liquor on his breath persuaded her to say nothing. Indigo’s excitement and happiness at the good news far outweighed the irritation of the rude driver. Indigo could hardly wait to get there to see her big sister; if they got going now there was still time to get to the dam before dark, so Hattie directed the driver to go back upriver.

Hattie could not get the superintendent’s words off her mind. What would happen to a child like Indigo, accustomed now to decent shelter and clothing and nutritious food? All the education she’d managed to get would be for naught if she came back to live here. Except for the vicious rock throwers, the reservation at Parker seemed lifeless; the few Indian women and men she saw had eyes full of misery. Indigo’s beloved little monkey and the parrot would likely be stolen or killed almost at once. Perhaps adoption would be best for Indigo; the superintendent implied he could authorize the adoption himself.

Sister Salt recognized the old Walapai woman at the street corner in Needles and called to her. The old woman looked a long time as if trying to identify her, then suddenly a big toothless grin spread over her face and she called out and motioned for Sister to come over. First she wanted to see Sister’s baby, and pronounced the little black grandfather healthy and fortunate, then she asked if Grandma Fleet was still weaving those little baskets shaped like turkeys and frogs. Sister Salt’s face fell and she shook her head slowly; the Walapai woman knew immediately, and tears filled into her eyes. “And your mother?” she asked. “Is she still traveling with the dancers?” Sister Salt nodded, then asked if anyone had heard news of their whereabouts.